Wall insulation in Bearwood
Nearly every wall here has a cavity, so the useful question is what is in it already and whether a second lot of material helps or hinders.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Nearly every house in Bearwood has a cavity wall, so the answer is usually a fill, but only after a borescope has shown what is in it and whether it is dry. The question is rarely whether you have a cavity. It is whether that cavity is already part full of board from the day it was built, and what a second lot of material would actually do in the gap that is left.
Bearwood wall questions usually start on a cold north side or at the front door. A late seventies house that feels cold on the north side and has never had anything done to the walls. Or a newer one where somebody has knocked on the door offering a fill, and the owner wants a second opinion before letting anybody drill it.
We give that opinion by looking rather than guessing. One small hole in a mortar joint, a borescope through it, moisture readings on the inside face, and a walk round the outside. Then a free written itemised quote, with the survey, the system, the junctions and the making good on separate lines, or a straight recommendation to spend the money elsewhere, which insulation in Bearwood sets out room by room.
The work
What is in the gap already, and what should join it
Partial fill, and why it matters. Newer houses were often built with rigid board clipped to the inner leaf and a clear residual cavity left in front of it. That gap is there to stop water crossing, and blowing it full changes how the wall handles driven rain.
A borescope shows the board, the width of what is left and the state of the wall ties, and that one look is the difference between a sensible job and an expensive mistake.
Cavity wall insulation where it is right. An empty cavity that is clear, dry and wide enough gets filled from outside through drilled holes, made good in matching mortar. Bonded polystyrene bead flows into the awkward corners and stays where it is put; blown mineral wool is the older answer and still fine on a sheltered wall. A normal house is a day.
The 1960s and 1970s stock. Bearwood cavities of that age are usually empty and usually worth filling, but they can be narrow and they often carry mortar droppings on the ties, which bridge water across. Any of that shows on the scope. Where it is bad the honest answer is to clean or leave, not to fill and hope.
Internal wall insulation. IWI is the fallback where a cavity cannot be used, and the route of choice on any solid wall: insulated plasterboard bonded on, or batten and stud with mineral wool or PIR between, then boarded and skimmed. Celotex and Kingspan give more per millimetre and aerogel board suits a room with none to spare. Reveals, threshold, floor junction and joist ends all get wrapped, because that is where the heat loss actually is.
External wall insulation. EWI is board on the outside face with a render carrier and a thin coat over it. It wraps a Bearwood house in one go, deals with the thermal bridge at eaves and corners, and leaves the rooms their size. It also thickens every reveal and pushes the sills, the meter box and the rainwater goods outwards, so it is a bigger piece of work than it looks.
Ventilation, damp and failed fill. Old fill settles in a Bearwood wall, and a slumped cavity leaves a cold band at the head of the wall; a wet cavity carries penetrating damp inside and black mould with it. Both come off the borescope, and extraction comes first. Whatever goes on, the ventilation has to keep up: trickle vents, a real extract fan, and any air brick that has been blocked up. Insulating moves the dew point and takes the draughts away, so a taped vapour control layer and breathable materials keep interstitial condensation out of the build up.
How it runs
Checking a cavity before anything is injected
A lot of Bearwood was built in the eighties, when partial fill boards were often put into the cavity as the walls went up. So before anything is recommended, Thomas drills a single small hole and looks inside with a borescope: partial fill, full fill, a clear cavity, or mortar droppings bridging it. His quote then sets out that survey, the system proposed and its thickness, making good at windows and doors, any ventilation work, and disposal.
Where cavity fill is right, it is injected from outside by a registered installer, with a CIGA certificate, and each hole is filled in a colour matched to the mortar. Internal lining is done a room at a time with furniture moved and sheeted, so the rest of the house stays usable. Waste leaves with us. Corroded wall ties or a bridged cavity are shown to you with a price before we go further.
Lining the inside of a wall is not something you apply for, as Planning Portal guidance on insulation confirms, and with no conservation area in Bearwood, external insulation on an unlisted house is an ordinary permitted development question; Planning Portal guidance on external walls covers it. Building control still has to be told: regulation 23 says an upgraded wall must meet Part L, set out in Approved Document L, and the inspector looks at the U-value and the ventilation together.
Cost
Part filled cavities, terraces and window reveals
A per square metre rate would mislead you on wall insulation. The open wall is quick; each window, door and floor junction is not.
What the borescope finds. An empty, dry cavity can be filled in a day. A part filled cavity, which is common in houses of this age, will not take more, so the options become insulated plasterboard inside or boards and render outside.
Access outside. A terrace with a shared drive, a detached house on a corner plot and a bungalow with low eaves are three different set-ups before a hole is drilled. Low eaves come off a tower, a two storey gable is scaffolded, and the work at height rules decide which.
Lining from inside. Sockets, skirtings, radiators and window boards come off and go back, and each room gives up a little floor space.
Boards outside. The rooms stay as they are, but sills have to be extended and downpipes and meters moved out.
Cold bridges. Reveals, the floor junction, the eaves and, on a terrace, the party wall are where condensation starts if the detail is wrong.
Compare quotes by asking whether anyone has looked into the cavity with a borescope, which system and thickness they propose, how they will finish the reveals, whether ventilation is covered, and who makes good the plaster and decoration afterwards.
If damp has appeared
New damp after cavity fill or lining
When damp or black mould appears on an outside wall after it was insulated, the usual suspect is rain crossing the cavity through the fill, often on an exposed gable, or warm indoor air condensing at a cold junction.
Each needs a different fix, so nothing is pulled out until we know which. Give us a ring, not the form, and note where the damp sits and whether it follows rain or cold nights. On the first visit we trace the cause and make any wet sockets or loose plaster safe. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If we are not able to answer, we ring back when we can.
Worth knowing
Why a newer house is not automatically a fill
The building stock here is mostly post-war and a good third of it went up in the 1980s or later. That sounds like good news for cavity work and often it is, but it also means a lot of these walls were insulated at the point they were built.
Rigid board fixed to the inner leaf, a clear gap in front of it, and a wall that is already doing a fair share of its job. Blowing that residual gap full is not obviously an improvement, and on an elevation that takes the weather it can be the opposite.
That is the whole argument for drilling before quoting. If the scope shows board and a decent clear gap, we will normally tell you the walls are not where your money belongs. If it shows an empty cavity of proper width, clean and dry, it is one of the most straightforward improvements there is. Either way you get told which, in writing, and nobody sells you a system on the doorstep on the strength of the year the house was built.
Who you are dealing with
Who drills the test hole, and how to check them
Around Kinson Common, the Magna Road side and the BH11 streets nearby, Bearwood included, we insulate walls from our base in Boscombe, 5 miles away. Planning and building control here are for Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council.
The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Owner Thomas Hannen looks into the cavity and prices the job himself. One verified customer's rating of us on Checkatrade is 10 out of 10. Neither the site visit nor the itemised written quote costs anything. Before you book a visit in Bearwood, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Bearwood?
Most repairs in Bearwood need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.
| Question | In Bearwood |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Bearwood. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Bearwood, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Bearwood. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Bearwood. |
Questions
Questions about wall insulation in Bearwood
How do I know if my walls were insulated when they were built?
The borescope shows it in minutes: board clipped to the inner leaf with a clear gap in front. Deeds and brochures rarely say, and the year alone proves nothing.
A firm cold called offering to insulate our walls. Worth taking up?
Not before somebody drills a hole and looks inside. A wall that already holds board, or one that is wet or narrow, is a wall to leave exactly as it is.
What are wall ties and why do you look at them?
They tie the two leaves together across the cavity. Mortar sitting on them carries water across, and rusted ones are a repair job in their own right instead of something to bury.
What would you put into an empty cavity on this stock?
Bead on anything taking weather, because it flows into corners and holds position. Blown mineral wool where the elevation is sheltered, which is cheaper to install and perfectly sound.
Will filling the cavity stop the north wall feeling cold?
It helps, but the cold you feel in a corner is often a thermal bridge at a reveal or a floor junction rather than the middle of the wall, and that needs detailing rather than filling.
Nearby, and next door
Wall insulation near Bearwood
Nearby places we also cover for wall insulation, with straight-line distances from Bearwood, and the other trades we offer in Bearwood itself.
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Damp at the bottom of a wall: what it is PIR board vs mineral wool: which insulation? Hollow-sounding wall: blown plaster or dot and dabEverything we do in Kinson Wall insulation, all areas Every area we cover
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Have the wall checked before anybody drills it
Thomas comes out, scopes the cavity, tells you what is already in there and prices the honest answer in writing. The visit and the quote are free.